Need a textbook in a hurry? Startup will send it by drone

Australian textbook rental company launches hexacopter delivery in Sydney.

A textbook-rental startup in Australia has found a new way to shave costs from its business model: delivery by drone. Zookal, which sells and rents textbooks to Australian university students, has launched a pilot program (pilotless program?) at the University of Sydney to deliver textbooks by autonomous hexacopter.

The drone, from a University of Sydney supported startup called Flirtey, will fly to a customer at a designated GPS location based on data sent from an app on the customer's cell phone. Hamish McKenzie of PandoDaily reports that Zookal is partnering with another startup, social media company Vimbra, to build a joint drone delivery service. The companies say that the service will dramatically reduce the cost of local shipping of textbooks and cut delivery time. The drone is not equipped with a camera, but it does have collision avoidance systems to prevent collisions with birds, trees, buildings, and overhead wires.

Zookal's textbook delivery drone in tests near Sydney Harbor.

The delivery system, the companies claim, will fly to the GPS waypoint assigned for the delivery, hover above it, and then lower the book package to the waiting customer. The two companies claim that Zookal's delivery trial is the first commercial use of drones in the world (though other companies have used drones in trials and as part of promotional stunts, such as a pizza delivery drone used in a viral campaign by a UK Domino's franchise holder).

The Domino's delivery drone.

Australia currently allows commercial drone operations, but expansion of the service beyond the Sydney trial—and to other countries—will have to leap multiple regulatory hurdles. In the US, commercial drone operations are still not legal while the Federal Aviation Administration considers rules for integrating drones into the national airspace.

Seems remarkably inefficient. Especially for textbooks. A quality ereader and an internet connection seems to be a much better solution.

While I could certainly see this sort of thing having applications in very specific instances and situations, I'm skeptical that it would scale well or be practical on any sustainable commercial scale.

Someone on Hacker News pointed out that this is illegal on multiple fronts.

zik wrote:

What they're proposing is illegal in Australia too. There's really strong regulation about what you can and can't do with a drone and this falls strongly into the "can't" category. I know this because I've tried.

All drones have to be human piloted under our current regulations. So the autonomous thing is illegal for a start. Secondly flying aircraft of that size at low altitudes over populated areas is also illegal. And flying them at high altitudes without a transponder is illegal, and they're too small to carry a transponder.

I bet someone from CASA (our FAA equivalent) sees this article and gives them a nice little visit.

What's the range of these drones? They compete against "same day delivery" which goes for ~$20 according to them, but isn't that country-wide, or at least between major cities? Obviously these drones can only deliver small packages to locations in a very small radius. When you're on campus, is it really that hard to walk over and pick up your book? Just seems like a very limited use case...

a few thoughts:E-readers- I know a lot of people like them but I am very hesitant when they are discussed in the context of textbooks. I think that the publishers would love to switch to a "rent a e-copy for the term" model. Cuts publishing costs by a large amount, means that you can't resell it, and that you have to upgrade to the latest ed. It also means that non-university users of the books (I use several as references in my current work) would have to purchase a subscription rather than just a new book every 3-5 years.

Drone delivery- Seems like they are attempting to bring a Sci-Fi concept to life which is cool, but not practical in this case. What happens if someone "poaches" the book before the drone gets it to the correct person? How does the drone know that it has the right person to release it to? What happens if it flies through the sprinklers and gets the book soaked? (same for rain but I presumed they would not send if raining) What is to keep the drone from being stolen?

I do think its cool, but not practical. I would not have my $10 Chinese takeout delivered this way, why would I trust it to bring me a very expensive textbook? (mine have usually run between $150 & $300 each)

This seems a little unnecessarily complex. I can understand why you might want a drone delivering your Pizzas because of the distances and time limits involved but textbooks are both very heavy and not anywhere as time sensitive.

a few thoughts:E-readers- I know a lot of people like them but I am very hesitant when they are discussed in the context of textbooks. I think that the publishers would love to switch to a "rent a e-copy for the term" model. Cuts publishing costs by a large amount, means that you can't resell it, and that you have to upgrade to the latest ed. It also means that non-university users of the books (I use several as references in my current work) would have to purchase a subscription rather than just a new book every 3-5 years.

Drone delivery- Seems like they are attempting to bring a Sci-Fi concept to life which is cool, but not practical in this case. What happens if someone "poaches" the book before the drone gets it to the correct person? How does the drone know that it has the right person to release it to? What happens if it flies through the sprinklers and gets the book soaked? (same for rain but I presumed they would not send if raining) What is to keep the drone from being stolen?

I do think its cool, but not practical. I would not have my $10 Chinese takeout delivered this way, why would I trust it to bring me a very expensive textbook? (mine have usually run between $150 & $300 each)

edit: typo

While I agree that this aspect isn't practical it does look like they have covered the sprinkler/rain issue in that from the picture it looks like the book is enclosed.That said I hope this takes off and gets awareness since drones could be used to deliver all sorts of things and if this is the first stepping stone then I'm all for it.

a few thoughts:E-readers- I know a lot of people like them but I am very hesitant when they are discussed in the context of textbooks. I think that the publishers would love to switch to a "rent a e-copy for the term" model. Cuts publishing costs by a large amount, means that you can't resell it, and that you have to upgrade to the latest ed. It also means that non-university users of the books (I use several as references in my current work) would have to purchase a subscription rather than just a new book every 3-5 years.

edit: typo

Well it does say a textbook rental place, so that's already addressed. And yes E-readers would have the advantages of fast delivery and none of the drone downsides.

One thing will make this not work: battery life. Hauling 2-3 lb packages isn't very difficult for most of these drones, and nor is flying around at 30 mph. However, while doing all of that, you're going to be lucky if you get more than 10 minutes of battery life. This means that you're going to have to swap in another $40 battery after every single flight, thus needing a LOT of batteries, people to change them out, and a lot of chargers as well.

If not for the battery life problem this would be a great idea, especially if they can automate it so the drones can pick up the packages automatically.

This seems implausible now, but as batteries improve and automation improves, I can certainly see it becoming plausible.

An intermediate step might be automation to load the product on the drone and fly it to the proximity of the target, then hand control to a pilot at that point to determine the appropriate drop-off point, interact with the customer (could even call them to let them know the drone is arriving), etc. Then back to automation when flying to the next drop-off point or back to station. That cuts 90% of the pilot time but requires less intelligence in the drone.

This article is misleading at best and inaccurate at worst. They have not received regulatory approval from CASA to use these drones and opinions I've read say it seems highly unlikely they will get approval.

The recipient can track the drone on their smartphone and step outside when it arrives. The drone waits for a short period of time. If the user misses it, the order can be placed again, said Sweeny.

When the drone arrives, the recipient must press “Lower package” on the smartphone app. The delivery mechanism lowers the parcel based on the location of the smartphone. These processes ensure the parcel is delivered to the right person, said Sweeny.

The drone continues to hover when making the delivery, lowering the parcel to the customer without having to leave its hovering height. If the recipient applies force to the drone’s lowering cord, the parcel is designed to break free without damage to the drone.

The drones are electric-powered using rechargeable lithium polymer batteries. The current model can fly 3 km, allowing deliveries in most CBDs, and carry up to 2 kg. Flirtey expects to increase both limits in future versions of the technology.

For greater safety, the Flirtey drone is built so that it can still land after losing a batter or rotor.

How come none of these demonstration videos show the article actually being received by someone? Because no one wants to take a rotor in the eye. They certainly have a way to go on the safety & regulation front.

How come none of these demonstration videos show the article actually being received by someone? Because no one wants to take a rotor in the eye. They certainly have a way to go on the safety & regulation front.

See above for more detail. The robot never goes near head height.It lowers the book on a rope after the user presses a button on their smartphone.

Man, a post office with these would be awesome. Mail drones EVERYWHERE!

The geek in me screams in delighted agreement. It's not *quite* is awesome as the idea of pneumatic tubes for delivery, but it's still quite awesome as a concept.

The [shortened name for overly-paranoid person who is worried about government of any kind with drones over civilian populace] in me screams in delighted terror. Well... terror, anyway.

Regarding using e-texts for school: it has been my personal experience that this is an idea that needs to be seriously dealt with. I flip around in academic books far too much to make anything like this feasible. I flip around in my leisure reading enough that it's a chore, but a glow-in-the-dark e-reader makes for worthwhile reading before bed.There are often times things I remember to find in a textbook by using how deep into the text or what pictures were on the page as I flip through 200 pages in a few seconds.Unless we ever get something like Wolfram & Hart's reference books, etexts will fall behind physical text books.

I'm admittedly kinda bullish on this and I think lots of people are looking only at the short-term obstacles.

Expense .... expensive hobby copters are in the $400 range today as premium products. For the sake of argument, let's say that each drone costs $1k after being "productized" with camera, GPS, better lift capacity, etc. That's nothing. A car for delivery service costs 10X the price and the human driver is more expensive still. Cost is NOT a problem here.

Batteries ... as long as a drone can make a full round-trip, that's all you need. The drone can rest back on station for 30min in between each trip like your Roomba does. Scale horizontally with N copters to achieve the needed delivery throughput capacity. The cost of that rest stop just gets figured in.

Lift capacity ... make it bigger, end of story. Cost should scale linearly or sub-linearly with lift capacity and endurance. Plus, there's plenty of research into "teaming" where N copters jointly provide lift force to a heavier package.

Today, this is still in the novelty category. Once the kinks are worked out, there's a MASSIVE potential market here. Imagine a $5k kit that has 4 drones, base stations, and all the software. Let's say your bicycle delivery agent makes $50 per day (laughably low) ... that's a 3-month ROI.

I see just the opposite. Anything that you can do to tailor a service to a customer's schedule seems like it would do very well. As for me, I am gone most of the day so having a package delivered when I want, say 10pm, would be very appealing.

Additionally, the current model of fill the big diesel truck, drive all day, do again tomorrow, seems grossly inefficient. I am sure that we have just about wrangled out most of the efficiency that we can from that model whereas drone delivery is radically different. The possibility for innovation causes me to believe that this is an avenue worthy of serious consideration rather than viewing it happening "just because we can".

I envision several small drone ports throughout a city. Drone drops a package to zone 4, lands at zone 4 port, then waits until tasked for return to the main distribution hub or pick up a package from a customer in the area.

If drones do begin to make deliveries in the US I will certainly be an advocate for drone users rights. Maintain the anonymity of the drone users, no searches without a warrant as it is the property of a citizen and therefor an extension of that person (no third party doctrine loophole). Intercepting a delivery drone would come with harsh penalties. I love the idea of a completely anonymous and reasonably secure (if autonomous as opposed to radio controlled) delivery method.

I am having a hard time picturing how thousands of these delivery drones could be flying around a city without causing significant disruption. For instance, collision detection wouldn't keep drones from flying over airport runways or other restricted spaces. Also, how stable would these drones be on a windy day? Would they start bumping into each other and other objects?

Edit to add: Any delivery system that unusable in bad weather is a non-starter from a business perspective.

How long till a student delivers a book into a copse of trees or a busy intersection or a power line or top of a flagpole or someone's lunch or into a waiting armada of laptops all trying to take control or jam the thing?

I live in a suburb adjacent to Syd U, and I'm tempted to try all those things...

How come none of these demonstration videos show the article actually being received by someone? Because no one wants to take a rotor in the eye. They certainly have a way to go on the safety & regulation front.

See above for more detail. The robot never goes near head height.It lowers the book on a rope after the user presses a button on their smartphone.

What's the range of these drones? They compete against "same day delivery" which goes for ~$20 according to them, but isn't that country-wide, or at least between major cities? Obviously these drones can only deliver small packages to locations in a very small radius. When you're on campus, is it really that hard to walk over and pick up your book? Just seems like a very limited use case...

Wouldn't same hour delivery be just tops, though. I, for one, would welcome the drones if I could get all my hardcovers 45 minutes after I place the order.

Sean Gallagher / Sean is Ars Technica's IT Editor. A former Navy officer, systems administrator, and network systems integrator with 20 years of IT journalism experience, he lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.